SMORE Update

Safety

• DART: represents accidents where someone was injured

Congratulations on 676 days without a lost-time injury!

New Substation Training Underway

Substations are a critical part of our grid. A single substation outage can leave thousands of consumer-members without power. Yet, with the proper knowledge and training, new technology and techniques can be used to significantly reduce restoration times. Recognizing this, Daniel Carver and Jodi Hughes have begun in-depth substation training with SVEC line crews.

Once a month, a crew meets with Carver and Hughes at a substation to get an in-depth look at substation operations and target areas that may help crews efficiently locate and resolve problems. Among the topics covered are common outage causes, control house operations and backfeeding procedures, which can restore power to thousands of consumer-members within a few minutes.

Member Experience

• Average ratings on member services survey: Scale of 1 (lowest) to 5 (highest)

Website Redesign

Using the latest web technologies and best practices, SVEC launched an updated website in mid-October. Existing content was redesigned for easier navigation and better presentation of information for consumer-members.

Outreach to Community

• Community Participation: Volunteer hours spent in SVEC-sanctioned group activities

Blood Drive

Thank you to Mike McWaters, Mike Guillery, John Robinson, Daniel Warren, Annette Bonds, Crystal Ecker, Christine Moor, Leslie Grinnell, Daniel Carver, and Kirk Head for donating at our August Blood Drive. Your donations could help save up to 30 local lives.

Back to School Bash

Rain couldn’t stop smiles from shining at the Back to School Bash for Suwannee County Schools in August. SVEC joined district staff, volunteers, and community partners to distribute backpacks with school supplies and peanut butter to local students.

Food Fight

SVEC organized the first Suwannee Valley Food Fight, benefiting Florida Gateway Food Bank. Eleven community-focused organizations came together for a friendly competition to earn the most points awarded based on pounds of food and dollars donated. First, second and third place went to SVEC, Check & Scott Pharmacy, and the Florida Peanut Federation, respectively.

During the four weeks of the Food Fight, 3,470 pounds of food and $1,150 were collected. The money alone can be leveraged by the food bank to provide approximately 13,800 nutritious meals to local people in need.

Cornhole Tournament

SVEC held the fourth annual Suwannee Valley Cornhole Tournament on Oct. 9. A total of 25 teams participated in competitive and novice brackets, with players from as far away as Ocala. Thanks to the players and our local sponsors, the tournament raised $5,717.75 for United Way of Suwannee Valley. Many thanks to Joe Barclay, Christy Tuckey, Raymond Poole, Daniel Warren, Jessy Preston, Maci Brown, Maria Suarez, Craig Ragan, and Jon Little for volunteering their time to support this charitable event!

Candy Carnival

Suwannee County and the City of Live Oak joined forces this year to host the first joint Candy Carnival and Fall Festival at the Suwannee County Fairgrounds Coliseum. SVEC participated with a Frankenstein’s Laboratory candy booth and won second place in the booth decorating contest. Many thanks to Mike McWaters, Kristy McWaters, and Jon Little for dressing the part!

Reliability

• SAIDI: Time (minutes) the average consumer was without power
• SAIFI: Number of times the average consumer has experienced a power interruption of more than 5 minutes
• CAIDI: Time (minutes) the average consumer who actually experienced an outage was without power
• Reliability Plan Points: Measure of how well we’re meeting various goals of the Reliability Plan

Lending a Hand — Hurricane Ida

Evan Skeen, Matt Dickerson, Austin Long, and Jerrad Boles traveled to Greenwell Springs, Louisiana, for 10 days to help Dixie Electric Membership Cooperative with recovery efforts following Hurricane Ida. Due to flooding, the crew members were only able to make use of the two pickup trucks and two bucket trucks they brought with them for the first couple of days. After that, they had to use airboats to take them to transmission lines, where they relied heavily on pole climbing to handle repairs.

Economic Viability

• FPM Points: measure of how well we’re meeting various goals of the Financial Management Plan
• OT Hours: overtime hours as a percent of total hours worked

Admin/Cybersafety

• Weak Password: number of passwords that do not comply with SVEC’s password policy
• Training Completed: Percentage of cyber security training completed by due date

Security Hints & Tips

Is That Email Really From HR?

One of the easiest ways the bad guys trick you into falling victim to their scams is to create a sense of trust by pretending to be someone you know. More than likely, you receive emails from your human resources team on a frequent basis.

Scammers take advantage of this constant communication by crafting “spear phishing” attacks using emails that spoof your HR team.

Spear phishing attacks are email scams that typically target an individual or organization by spoofing or appearing to come from a trusted sender.

Don’t blindly trust emails that seem to come from your HR department. See the tips below to learn more about these types of scams.

How Do I Spot a Fake?

• Does this sound like typical communication? Pay attention to the context in the body of the email. Look for spelling errors, grammar errors, and odd sentence structure.
• Are you being asked to review unfamiliar policies or procedures? If you’re being asked to download an attachment or click a link to review a policy you’ve never heard of, think twice before you click.
• Are you being asked to do something that wouldn’t typically be addressed via email? Beware of emails containing an attachment for your “paid bonus” or any other matter that seems out of the ordinary for email communication.

Who Sent the Email?

• Does the sender’s email address appear to be from an unfamiliar domain or a third-party company?
  If the domain of the sender’s email address is generic — for instance, “humanresources.com” — the email may not be from your internal HR department. Ensure the email is from an address that your HR team typically uses to send mail. But remember, even if the domain is from your organization, it could be spoofed.
• Does the email signature make sense?
  Ensure the signature in the body of the email matches the name and job role of the sender. Some HR phishing scam emails have unusual or inaccurate job titles in the email signature or have no signature at all.

When in doubt, always pick up the phone and call someone from your HR team to confirm the email is safe and legitimate. They’ll be thankful you used your resources, rather than putting your organization at risk.